When Beardyman plays the Independent on Sunday, March 15, don’t expect to hear songs from his second album, “Distractions.”

When Beardyman plays the Independent on Sunday, March 15, don’t expect to hear songs from his second album, “Distractions.”

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Beardyman, also known as Darren Foreman, may not replay his album onstage but is pleased with “Distractions,” which moves between glitchy, spaced-out electronica, pop and singer-songwriter territories.

Beardyman, also known as Darren Foreman, may not replay his album onstage but is pleased with “Distractions,” which moves between glitchy, spaced-out electronica, pop and singer-songwriter territories.

Photo: Juan Jose Ortiz

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Darren Foreman, performing as Beardyman, likes to create live onstage instead of playing what he’s recorded on an album. “When you get off stage, you can’t remember what you’ve done. I really love it.” less

Darren Foreman, performing as Beardyman, likes to create live onstage instead of playing what he’s recorded on an album. “When you get off stage, you can’t remember what you’ve done. I really love ... more

Photo: Juan Jose Ortiz

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For electronic musician Beardyman, a blank slate each night

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There’s a certain rhythm to most album cycles. You write the album, you record the album, you release the album, you go on tour and you play the album live.

“That feels like prison,” Foreman says during a phone call from London. “To me, that makes no sense. Why would you go record a bunch of songs and then play them again and again and again?”

Instead, he starts from scratch for each show, using a massive electronic system that allows him to compose music on the spot.

“I like the idea of being able to transform — and having to transform out of necessity,” Foreman says. “When you get offstage, you can’t remember what you’ve done. I really love it.

“For me, it’s the only way.”

So, when Foreman plays the Independent on Sunday, March 15, fans shouldn’t expect to hear anything from “Distractions,” his most recent album, released stateside last month. About the most he can promise is “a dance party.”

“As an album project, I liked working on these songs that are on 'Distractions’ a lot. But I’m probably not going to perform any of them live. I’m a really weird thing,” he says. “I just want to go out onstage and make music as it comes to me. That’s always been what I wanted to do.”

Foreman’s unique approach to making music is helped along by what he call his “rig,” or what his press release calls the “Beardytron 5000 mkII.” You could also call it his obsession. The rig is made up of two computers, four iPads, a drum machine, a “monstrous, monstrous multisynth,” a keyboard, seven pedals (each with multiple buttons) and fans to cool the whole thing down.

Foreman has been assembling the rig, which he says “has been my dream for years,” bit by bit. He’s hired programmers — and learned to program himself — to pull it all together.

“It’s about as nerdy as you can get with music,” he says. What it all means, though, is he has the “ability to freely mangle sounds as you go.”

As much as Foreman appears to be a creature of this digital age, there’s an element of contradiction in his music. He began his career as a beatboxer, named two years in a row as the UK Beatbox Champion, and he folds that technique into his music.

Many of the sounds that run throughout his recent album and laid down at his show, he creates himself before he distorts them to fit his needs. In fact, he only just recently started using a synth. The other thing about this setup: Foreman uses no samples or recorded material, not even from his own tracks. “I like the idea of being able to build everything from scratch.”

But for all the talk about starting fresh each night, Foreman says he is happy with the way his recent album turned out. The record is wide-ranging, moving between glitchy, spaced-out electronica, pop and singer-songwriter territories. Those songs, also created on his rig, represent a departure from Foreman’s previous work. He describes his first album, released nearly four years ago, as “not entirely music. It was sort of stupid sketches and novelty tracks.”

“It felt good to start from a place of no conscious intention,” Foreman says about the new album. “Throughout my, sort of, career so far, there’s always been an angle, something funny about it.